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Free Stuff

Free Stuff

Jul 20, 1999

By Shawn P. McCarthy

Take it with you. Carry a palmtop computer and you have the world in your hands'or so it can seem. Some shareware expands a palm's capabilities in a lot of useful ways, from keeping track of your money to performing quick calculations to sending a fax. You can even use your palm computer to change channels.

Total remote control. If your handheld runs Microsoft Windows CE and has an infrared device, you can program it to act as a universal remote to control televisions, appliances or anything with an IR port.

SkyCommander is a remote control program capable of emulating and storing a range of commands. And you can create your own custom settings.

Developed by Oh Hong Meng, SkyCommander can be downloaded from skycommander.webjump.com/.

Custom kit. If you want to develop your own programs for Windows CE, check out BasiCE from Dean Geinger.

It's a great programming starter set that runs right on your handheld. It will run on an SH-3 or Mips processor.

Download BasiCE from www.jps.net/deang/basice.htm.

Track the pennies. Here's a handy program for tracking traveling expenses. Dollars and CEnts from StingerSoft offers multiple accounts, running totals, transfers, and minimum and maximum balance displays. And it calculates tips for restaurants.

You might even end up using it as a personal financial tracking system.

Dollars and CEnts is available at www.laurenson.com/stingersoft/DandC/DandC.html.

Send anything. How often would you actually need to send and receive faxes from your handheld?

If your job takes you into the field and involves creating drawings or gathering information not easily represented in a mail message, you probably would use Filegram quite a lot.

The program, from Fong Chee Keat, lets you transfer files to a PC or other device via modem.

You can download Filegram from web.singnet.com.sg/~cheekeat/wince/Filegram/Filegram100-ARM.zip.

Figure it out. Scientists and engineers need special calculators that you generally can't buy at Wal-Mart. But why bother to buy a separate calculator at all?

RPN Calculator from Tom Boldt can be programmed to support more than 180 functions and 11 data types, including vector, matrix, integer, variable, program, unit, complex and string. Your custom programs can be saved and reloaded.